Oils ain’t cocoa butter: the last word on Cadbury chocolate

From Cadbury’s website: “Real chocolate is made from cocoa and its ingredients include cocoa butter, an expensive part of the cocoa bean. Compound chocolate is made, instead, with vegetable oils and doesn’t have the same fine qualities.” So, is their new recipe which includes vegetable oils as well as cocoa butter a compound chocolate rather than milk chocolate? Or maybe they’ve invented a whole new variety! Are there any experts out there in Crikeyland who can shed some light on this?

Today, another tipster writes:

As the owner of a flavour and fragrance company with some 30 years in the industry — a supplier to Cadbury-Schweppes (hence anonymity requested) — and specialising in ingredients for chocolate manufacturers, I’d say you’re about right.

“Real chocolate” doesn’t use vegetable oil.

However, I can find no mention of this in the Food Standards Code of Australia and New Zealand.

In 2006, the US FDA was lobbied by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (on behalf of the Chocolate Makers’ Association) to allow vegetable fats and oils to be used “as appropriate” in chocolate.

Currently I believe the FDA does not permit a product containing vegetable oils to be labelled as “chocolate”.

Cadbury operates in the mass market, and is always under pressure to keep costs down. 5% vegetable oil would add up to substantial savings on cocoa butter and is something their class of customer wouldn’t notice. It’s probably as much as they’ve found they can get away with.

“Conching” time (smoothness comes from the grinding time of the liquid chocolate — 24 hours for mass-market, up to 72 hours for those who care)

“Real chocolate” has a glossy appearance, and a distinct “snap”. The “snap” comes from tempering the chocolate as it cools — vegetable oils interfere with the crystallisation of the (beta-)cocoa butter.

The thing about cocoa butter is that its melting point is 35-37 degrees C (about body temperature), so it melts pleasantly in the mouth.

(For similar reasons it is a favoured base for suppositories — something your readers may feel is “too much information”.)

If anyone has read books on the generally corrupt chocolate industry, such as “Bitter Chocolate” by Carol Off, this sort of dodgy practice is small beer compared with their support of child slavery and crushing of any independent opposition. All this is to keep the price of cacao beans as low as possible.
They are running out of third world countries in which to grow their trees and exploit the local people.
I wonder if they are going to use suet……… no, that would be too expensive. Maybe they could boil down some poor people?

“Cadbury operates in the mass market, and is always under pressure to keep costs down. 5% vegetable oil would add up to substantial savings on cocoa butter and is something their class of customer wouldn’t notice.”
Nice remark from anonymous supplier to Cadbury. Of course other Crikey readers may be a better class of customer than me. But I can’t help thinking I’d really like to avoid this supercilous git’s products in future.